[G. L. c. 14

tance taxes, local taxation, accounts and such other divisions as the commissioner determines. It provides for the compensation and duties of these and other officers and employees in the department, and in section 9, authorizes the commissioner to divide the commonwealth into income tax districts.

2

The office of tax commissioner was created in 1865 by the same statute that established the franchise tax upon domestic corporations, and for many years the principal functions of the tax commissioner related solely to this tax1 and to the apportionment of the state tax. Formerly the treasurer of the commonwealth acted as tax commissioner and the deputy tax commissioner was commissioner of corporations; but in 1890 the treasurer ceased to act as tax commissioner and the tax commissioner thereafter acted as commissioner of corporations. Before 1898 the tax commissioner had little to do with the assessment of local taxes by the assessors of the various cities and towns, except when their valuation of the real estate and machinery of domestic corporations conflicted with his valuation for the purposes of the corporate franchise tax. In 1898 the tax commissioner was given power to visit any city or town. within the commonwealth to inspect the work of the assessors and advise them as to their duties, and ten years later he was given power to appoint three supervisors of assessors who were to furnish the local assessors with information concerning taxable property within their jurisdiction and to direct the assessors to make use of such information as he might deem necessary.⭑ This last statute was of great importance during the years preceding the adoption of the income tax, when the taxing authorities were engaged in a well organized but inevitably futile effort to enforce the law which required the taxation of intangible personal property at its capital value."

3

The duties of the commissioner have been increased in many other ways in recent years, such as the furnishing of books and blanks to the local assessors, which was formerly the duty of the secretary of the comfnonwealth, and in 1907 important

1 G. L. c. 63, infra page 505.

2 G. L. c. 58 § § 9, 10, infra page 167.

6

3 G. L. c. 59 § 74, infra page 303; c. 63 § 57, infra page 580.

4 G. L. c. 58 § § 1-8 inc., infra page 165.

5 See infra page 428.

6 G. L. c. 59 § 45, infra page 243.

G. L. c. 25]

8

duties in relation to the inheritance tax which were formerly in the hands of the treasurer were given to the tax commissioner." In 1916 the adoption of the income tax act, which incidentally relieved the tax commissioner to a great extent of his duties in connection with the supervision of local taxation, imposed an important new set of duties upon him, involving the entire administration of the income tax law.

In 1919, in connection with the reorganization of the executive and administrative departments of the commonwealth made necessary in order to comply with the Sixty-sixth Amendment to the constitution of the commonwealth, the office of tax commissioner was abolished, and a commissioner of corporations and taxation substituted, having all the duties of the tax commissioner, and control over the division of accounts as well."

CHAPTER 25

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITIES

Assessment of Expenses of Department upon Corporations and Municipalities

Section 11 provides for the assessment, on or before July first in each year, of the expenses of the department of public utilities in regulating gas, electric and water companies and municipal lighting plants upon the corporations and municipalities maintaining the same, such assessment to be apportioned among the corporations according to gross earnings and among the municipalities according to expenses, and to be collected from corporations in the same manner as the corporation tax and from cities and towns in the same manner as the state tax.

Section 16 provides for the assessment of the expenses of the department in inspecting gas and gas meters upon gas companies and municipalities maintaining gas plants in the same manner as is provided in section 11.

G. L. c. 65, infra page 605.

8 St. 1916, c. 269; see infra page 428. 9 St. 1919, c. 350, § § 52, 53.

[G. L. c. 29-33

CHAPTER 29

STATE FINANCE

It is provided in section 50 that the amount necessary to provide for serial payments on any bonds or scrip of the commonwealth shall be included in the state tax; and in section 51 that the state treasurer shall assess upon the metropolitan districts amounts required to meet serial payments on bonds issued for the benefit of the district.

CHAPTER 32

RETIREMENT SYSTEMS AND PENSIONS

It is provided in section 37 that the funds of state, county, city, town or teachers' retirement systems established under the preceding sections of the law, so far as they are invested in personal property, and the portions of members' wages deducted or to be deducted under such sections, the rights of members to an annuity or pension and all their rights in the funds of the retirement system, shall be exempt from taxation.

In section 41 a like exemption is given to the property of associations of employees of any employer formed for the purpose of providing annuities, pensions or endowments, and to the wages deducted and to rights of members in the fund.

CHAPTER 33

MILITIA

It is provided in section 6 that assessors shall annually file with their respective town clerks lists of persons liable to enrollment in the militia and in section 17 that keepers of boarding houses and masters of dwelling houses shall upon application furnish information to the assessors regarding persons therein liable to enrollment. Every able-bodied male citizen and every able-bodied male of foreign birth who has declared his intention to become a citizen, resident within the commonwealth and between the ages of 18 and 45, is required to be enrolled.

G. L. c. 35, §§ 30,31]

CHAPTER 35

COUNTY FINANCES

Determination of Amount of County Tax

SECTION 30. The amount which the county commissioners shall levy as the county tax shall be as authorized annually by the general court, and as computed by adding together the amounts of the annual appropriation and of any new special appropriation, so far as the money therefor is to be raised by taxation, and deducting therefrom so much of the probable receipts from all sources, except loans, and of the unappropriated balance in the county treasury at the closing of the treasurer's books for the previous year as the general court deems advisable.

SECTION 31. The county commissioners shall apportion and assess all county taxes among and upon the several towns according to the latest state valuation, and shall, by their clerk, certify the assessments to the assessors thereof, and prescribe the time of payment. The several amounts so apportioned and assessed shall be collected and paid like the state tax into the respective town treasuries, and the commissioners in their warrants shall require the selectmen or assessors of each town to pay, or to issue their warrants requiring the treasurer thereof to pay, to the county treasurer the amount so assessed, at such times as shall be fixed in the warrant of the commissioners. The selectmen or assessors of each town shall return a certificate of the name of the treasurer of such town, with the sum which he may be required to collect, to the county treasurer within the time fixed by the warrant of the county commissioners.

Each county is annually granted authority to levy a tax by a resolve of the legislature, the amount of the tax and the different items of appropriation being fixed in the resolve. The method of fixing the county tax was provided for by statute in 1897; but prior to that enactment it had been the practice since 1781 to grant the county taxes by annual resolve based on an estimate by the county commissioners and their predecessors of the probable needs of the county.1

1 See St. 1781, c. 22 § 1. For the procedure for collecting from a delinquent town its share of the county tax see G. L. c. 59, § 28, infra page 254.

[G. L. c. 36 §§ 22,31A

CHAPTER 36

REGISTERS OF DEEDS

Noting Instruments Affecting Tax Deeds

SECTION 22. If an assignment, release, partial release, discharge or disclaimer affecting title to land created by a sale or taking for payment of a tax or assessment is recorded, the register shall make a note of reference thereto on the margin of the record of the deed or instrument of sale or taking, if in his registry and referred to in such conveyance.

SECTION 31 A (St. 1921, chap. 207). Within sixty days after the recording of any deed in which the grantee is described as a trustee, or of any declaration of trust, the register in whose office such deed. or declaration is recorded shall send by mail to the commissioner of corporations and taxation a notification of the recording thereof, stating the name of the grantor and of the grantee or the trustee, and the date of recording.

CHAPTER 40

POWERS AND DUTIES OF CITIES AND, TOWNS

Street Sprinkling Assessments

SECTION 16. A town may sprinkle or spread upon its public ways, or parts thereof, any liquid or material suitable for laying or preventing dust and preserving the surface of such ways or for sanitary purposes, may appropriate money therefor, and determine that with respect to the whole or any part of such ways the whole or any part of such expense shall be assessed upon the estates abutting thereon.

SECTION 17. If a city determines that the public ways or any portion thereof shall be sprinkled in whole or in part at the expense of the abutters, such expense for a municipal year, and the proportion thereof to be borne by abutters, and the rate to be assessed upon each linear foot of frontage upon such ways, shall be estimated and determined by the board of aldermen and assessed upon the estates abutting on such ways in proportion to the number of linear feet of each estate upon such ways or portion thereof sprinkled. The amount of such assessments upon each estate shall be determined by said board, or, if said board so designates, by the board of public works, board of street commissioners, superintendent of streets or